Posts Tagged ‘Female Pelvic Fitness’

The pelvic floor muscles—a.k.a. the Kegel muscles—are internal, hidden and behind-the-scenes muscles, yet they are vital to a healthy existence. There are numerous advantages to keeping them robust and fit with Kegel pelvic floor exercises. Today’s entry enumerates why this is the case for females and next week’s entry will detail why Kegels are equally beneficial for males.

10 GOOD REASONS FOR WOMEN TO DO KEGEL EXERCISES

To enable you to have a more comfortable pregnancy, a smoother labor and delivery and a faster recovery.

I’ll be in Miami for a few days at the SMSNA (Sexual Medical Society of North America) meeting, so will upload this blog earlier than usual.

FUNCTIONAL PELVIC FITNESS

It’s one thing to work out your muscles in order to make them stronger, better toned and more durable, but it’s another dimension when you can put that effort to practical use over the course of your day. Since the pelvic floor muscles are muscles of function rather than form, muscles for “go” rather than “show,” they can be put into service when applied to common real life situations.

Urinary and Bowel Urgency (for both sexes)

Chances are that at one time or another you have experienced a sudden and urgent desire to use the bathroom when none was nowhere in sight. This often occurs as a result of an involuntary bladder or bowel contraction, when the bladder or bowel squeezes without your permission, sometimes on the basis of triggers that induce a conditioned response (classic triggers are hand washing, placing a key in the door to your home, rising from sitting, exposure to running water, entering the shower, cold or rainy weather, getting closer and closer to the bathroom, etc.). By recognizing the occurrence of the involuntary contraction and by actively squeezing your pelvic floor muscles using a “rapid flex” technique—rapidly pulsing the pelvic muscles 3-5 times—the urgency can be relieved (and the leakage that can sometimes occur can often be prevented). This works equally as well for bowel urgency as it does for urinary urgency.

Going a step beyond inhibiting urgency after it occurs is preventing it from occurring before it occurs. In order to do so, it is important to recognize any triggers that may induce your urgency. Immediately prior to exposure to a trigger, rapid flexes of the pelvic floor muscles can thwart the involuntary contraction before it even arises.

Dribbling After Urinating (for men)

An “after-dribble” of urine is more annoying than serious and is often a sign of weakening pelvic floor muscles, for which strengthening exercises have proven an effective remedy. Squeezing the pelvic floor muscles is the body’s natural way of expelling the contents of the urinary channel. When contracted, the bulbocavernosus muscle—the body’s urethral “stripper”—compresses the deep portion of the urethra, pushing the urine out. The 1909 Gray’s Anatomy aptly labeled this muscle the “ejaculator urine.”

By actively squeezing your pelvic floor muscles immediately after urinating by using a “basic flex” technique—powerfully pulsing the pelvic floor muscles 3-5 times for 1-2 seconds per contraction—the last few drops of urine will be directed into the toilet and not your pants.

Stress Urinary Incontinence (for both sexes)

Stress incontinence is urinary leakage provoked by sudden increases in abdominal pressure, triggered by sneezing, coughing, bending, lifting, exercising, positional change, etc. It is a common condition in women, often resulting from the pelvic trauma of childbirth, weakening the pelvic muscles and connective tissues that support the urinary channel. Although less common in men, it can occur following radical prostatectomy for prostate cancer and sometimes after prostate surgery done for benign conditions.

In order to help control stress incontinence, you need to be attentive to the triggers that provoke it. By actively squeezing the pelvic floor muscles immediately prior to the trigger exposure, the incontinence can be improved or eliminated. For example, if standing up provokes the incontinence, do a brisk pelvic floor muscle contraction using a “long, hard flex”—contracting the pelvic floor muscles powerfully for 3-5 seconds when transitioning from sitting to standing. This long, hard flex is a means of bracing the pelvic floor muscles immediately prior to an activity that incites the problem and can be a highly effective means of managing the stress incontinence. When practiced diligently, it becomes an automatic behavior.

Premature Ejaculation

Weak pelvic floor muscles seem to play a role in hindering your ability to delay ejaculation. Pelvic floor muscle exercises are a promising treatment option for premature ejaculation, as they will increase the strength, tone, power, and endurance of the pelvic muscles, which can help short-circuit the premature ejaculation. Numerous scientific studies have demonstrated the effectiveness of pelvic floor muscle training in the management of premature ejaculation.

To apply your pelvic muscle facility to the real life situation you need to recognize the imminent ejaculation, slow the pace of intercourse, pause the pelvic thrusting and perform a “hold”—a pelvic floor muscle contraction lasting about 10 seconds or so, until the point that the ejaculatory urgency disappears. By actively deploying your pelvic floor muscles by using this sustained contraction of the pelvic floor muscles, the ejaculation can often be forestalled and intercourse resumed.

Bottom Line: Pelvic floor muscle training has numerous practical benefits, from the bedroom to the bathroom. Learn more about the specifics of these exercises—rapid flexes, basic flexes, long hard flexes and holds, through the Private Gym pelvic floor muscle training program, a comprehensive, interactive, follow-along exercise program that strengthens the musclesthatsupport sexual and urinary health. (www.PrivateGym.com)

Truth: Au contraire…men have essentially the same pelvic floor muscles as do women and can derive similar benefits to sexual, urinary, and bowel health.

Myth: The best way to do Kegels is to stop the flow of urine.

Truth: If you can stop your stream, it is indeed proof that you are contracting the proper set of muscles. However, this is just a means of feedback to reinforce that you are employing the right muscles, but the bathroom should not be your Kegel muscle gymnasium.

Myth: You should do Kegel exercises as often as possible.

Truth: Pelvic floor muscle exercises strengthen and tone the pelvic floor muscles and like other muscle-strengthening routines, should not be performed every day. Pelvic exercises should be done in accordance with an intelligently designed plan of progressively more difficult and challenging exercises that require rest periods in order for optimal muscle growth and response.

Myth: You can and should do Kegels anywhere (while stopped in your car at a red light, waiting in line at the check out, while watching television, etc.)

Truth: Exercises of the pelvic floor muscles, like any other form of exercise, demand gravitas, focus, and isolation of the muscle group at hand. Until you are able to master the exercise regimen, it is best that the exercises be performed in an appropriate venue, free of distraction, which allows single-minded focus and concentration. This is not to say that once you achieve mastery of the exercises and a fit pelvic floor that you cannot integrate the exercises into the activities of daily living.

Myth: Holding the pelvic floor muscles tight all the time is desirable.

Truth: Not a good idea…the pelvic floor muscles have natural tone to them and when you are not actively engaging and exercising them, they should be left to their own natural state. There exists a condition—tension myalgia of the pelvic floor muscles—in which there is spasticity, tightness and pain due to excessive tension of these muscles. Pelvic floor training in this circumstance must be done with caution in order to avoid aggravating the pain, but maximal muscle contraction can induce maximal muscle relaxation, a meditative state between muscle contractions.

Truth: The pelvic floor muscles do form the floor of the “core” group of muscles and get some workout whenever the core muscles are exercised. However, for maximum benefit, specific focus needs to be made on the pelvic floor muscles. In Pilates and yoga, there is an emphasis on the core group of muscles and a collateral benefit to the pelvic floor muscles, but this is not enough to achieve the full potential fitness of a regimen that focuses exclusively on the pelvic muscles.

Myth: Kegel exercises do not help.

Truth: Au contraire…pelvic floor muscles have proven to help a variety of pelvic maladies in each gender. In females, pelvic floor muscle training can help urinary and bowel incontinence, pelvic relaxation, and sexual dysfunction. In males, pelvic floor muscle training can help incontinence (stress incontinence that follows prostate surgery, overactive bladder, and post void dribbling), erectile dysfunction, premature ejaculation and other forms of ejaculatory dysfunction as well as help bowel incontinence and tension myalgia of the pelvic floor.

Myth: Kegels are only helpful after a problem surfaces.

Truth: No, no, no. As in any exercise regimen, the best option is to be proactive and not reactive in order to maintain muscle mass and strength in order to prevent problems from arising before they have an opportunity to do so. Pelvic floor muscle training done during pregnancy can help prevent pelvic issues from arising in females and pelvic muscle training in males can likewise help prevent the onset of a variety of sexual and urinary maladies. There is no better time than the present to start pelvic exercises to delay or prevent symptoms.

Myth: You can stop doing Kegels once your muscles strengthen.

Truth: No, “use it or lose it” applies here as it does in any muscle-training regimen. Muscles adapt positively to the stresses and resistances placed upon them and so they adapt negatively to a lack of stresses and resistances. “Disuse atrophy” is a possibility with all muscles, including the pelvic floor muscles.

Myth: It is easy to learn how to isolate and exercise the pelvic floor muscles.

Truth: No, not the case at all. Studies have shown that over 70% of women who think they are doing pelvic floor muscle exercises properly are actually contracting other muscles, typically the rectus, the gluteal muscles, and the adductor muscles of the thigh. One of the greatest challenges is that there have been no well-designed, easy-to-follow pelvic muscle training programs…UNTIL NOW! The Private Gym Company was established after recognizing that there was an unmet need for a means by which a pelvic floor muscle-training program could be made accessible and available in the home setting. This comprehensive, interactive, follow-along exercise program is available on DVD…PrivateGym.com.

Myth: Kegels can adversely affect your sex life.

Truth: Absolutely not… In both genders, pelvic floor muscle training has been found to improve sexual function. The pelvic floor muscles play a critical role in both female and male sexuality, supporting clitoral and penile erections as well as ejaculation in males and orgasm in both genders.